


Of Blankets and Coffee Cake

by Saral_Hylor



Series: Cake'verse [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Cake, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, Pillow & Blanket Forts, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-05-22
Packaged: 2017-12-12 15:37:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/813193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saral_Hylor/pseuds/Saral_Hylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it's the simple, innocent things in life that turn out to be the best. Like building blanket forts and watching movies. </p>
<p>Or: the best 16th birthday celebration that Tony Stark didn’t known he wanted</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Blankets and Coffee Cake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quandong_crumble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quandong_crumble/gifts).



> This is birthday present for the awesome (and patient) quandong_crumble. (she is all the more awesome because she beta'd her own birthday present, even after it was late!)

“It’s not that I’m complaining, really, I hate complaining–“

“Tony, you love complaining.”

“–okay, well may I do just a little bit, but that’s hardly the point, Rogers. I guess I kinda hoped that it’d be different this year, because it’s my sixteenth and all. Everyone else I know had awesome sixteenth parties, and instead my parents have left the country – in opposite directions, no less – and I’m stuck here.” The dark haired boy huffed, sinking back into the battered old lounge a bit more, arms crossed over his chest. “I didn’t even get a jet ride.”

“Sorry, no jets, but we can go one better.”

Steve’s voice sounded muffled, but less distant. Tony looked up as he re-entered the room; looked up a saw a giant blanket blob. A giant blanket blob with skinny legs, knobbly knees and bare feet. Before he could get his genius mind around what was going on, said blank blob was dumped on top of him and he struggled to get his head above all the bedding, eyeing the smaller boy suspiciously.

“What could possibly be better than a jet and why do I have bedding on me? It’s not even cold.” He protested, pushing the blankets off onto the floor, taking in Steve’s flushed but smiling face. He was pretty sure that the blond was just deliberately being gorgeous, and he wasn’t sure if that was trustworthy. “What you playing at?”

Steve gave a dramatic sigh, walking out of the lounge room back to the adjoining kitchen/dining area, grabbing one of the heavy chairs at the table. He tried to lift and carry it, but settled for dragging it back into the clear floor space in front on the couch Tony was still sitting on. “Blanket fort.” Was the only response he gave.

“Blanket fort?” Tony raised an eyebrow, sceptical. “I’m the top student in my year at MIT, Rogers, I’m pretty sure that blanket forts are not going to be better jets.”

“Have faith, Tony, I’m an expert at blanket forts.” Steve went back for the next chair. “Mum and I used to build them a lot, when I got really sick and couldn’t leave the house. She’d build me a blanket fort and I’d stay in there for hours. Pretending that...”

“Pretending what?” He asked it reflexively, not noticing the way the younger boy blushed and turned his face away.

Steve didn’t answer, bringing the second chair into the lounge room, setting it opposite the first, facing away from each other. “You going to give me a hand, or just sit there and sulk?”

“I’m not sulking!” Tony got to his feet, following Steve back out to the dining area, grabbing one of the last two chairs. It was heavy, but he lifted it easily enough and had it in the lounge room in time to painstakingly watch Steve drag the last one in.

He didn’t really understand why he was friends with Steve, they were vastly different, and it wasn’t as though they even went to the same school. Tony was already at MIT while Steve, only just over a month younger than him, was still in high school. He’d known the blond for perhaps six months, and something had just clicked between them. They were polar opposites. They clashed, argued, had had one physical fight, but somehow they also fit together; they balanced each other out. He brought Steve out of his shell a bit, encouraged him to do things for himself and stop thinking of others all the time. Steve brought him back down to earth when he got too ahead of himself, made him want to not be so selfish, to do things for others. And he reminded Tony that it was okay, sometimes, just to act his age and enjoy innocent fun. Not everything had to be college parties and trying too hard to fit in with the adult world.

It was probably for that reason that Tony had sought out Steve that Friday afternoon, rather than either of his other friends, Pepper and Rhodey. Then again, it could have been due to the slight crush that he’d developed on the blond over the past month or so.

They worked together constructing the blanket fort, Steve giving instructions and suggestions of the best way to build it, Tony calculating different ideas in his head and then adapting the original design so the blankets wouldn’t cave in or the chairs tip over. They finished with a structure large enough for them to sit up in, or lie side by side in, that was enclosed on all sides except the end that faced the television. The floor was lined with pillows and cushions covered with a faded blue patchwork quilt that Steve’s grandmother had made for him.

Tony admired their handiwork, standing back to survey the completed blanket fort while Steve positioned a few extra pillows on top of the quilt. It wasn’t that he wanted to stare, but Steve was right there in front of him, bent over; it was impossible for Tony not to stare. He had to wrench his gaze away, looking anywhere else in the room than at Steve.

A few deep breaths and everything was good again. He sidled up next to the younger boy, bumping his fist gently against Steve’s shoulder. “So, now what?”

The blond straightened up, his full height being a good inch or two shorter than Tony; smiling up at the genius. “Now you pick a movie and get comfortable, and I’ve got something for you.”

Tony only had time to quirk an eyebrow before the shorter boy had spun around and disappeared into the kitchen. The dark haired boy shrugged to himself, going to search through the rather small collection of movies that the Rogers’ had. Most of them they had seen before, Tony reminded himself that he should bring more movies over, for the amount of weekends he had spent there over the past few months.

He eventually settled on the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, partially because it was a good, humorous movie, but mostly because he’d seen it that many times that he wouldn’t have to pay attention to it at all.

Tony set up the movie then crawled into the blanket fort, rolling onto his back and just laying there for a moment, looking up at the mismatch of blankets above him. The pillow he rested his head on smelt like Steve; he couldn’t help but turn his head and press his face into the fabric, breathing in deeply, even though he was sure it was a bit weird. He heard the other boy come back into the room and tipped his head back to see Steve place several things on the ground right in front of the blanket fort.

“What ya got?” Tony asked, rolling over onto his stomach to get a better perspective of what was going on.

Steve knelt on the carpet, and opened up the container he’d placed in front of him, revealing a round cake with coffee coloured icing and the works ‘happy 16th Tony’ piped across the top in chocolate. “It’s not much, I know, but it’s coffee flavoured, so I thought you’d like it, since, you drink a lot of it.”

“You made me a cake?” He glanced up from the cake to Steve, seeing the way the younger boy was blushing, the faint pink tinge across the tops of his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose, and he knew he’d guessed right. “I, wow, thanks, Steve.” It was all he could manage; it wasn’t like he’d had a lot of homemade birthday cakes in his life. Sure, the cake was nowhere near as extravagant as the birthday cakes he’d had, but it was homemade and so very Steve.

The younger boy just beamed that perfect smile at him, he blue eyes sparkling. “Did you want some now? Or you want to have dinner first? Mum left some money for pizza, if you want that.”

The cake looked terribly inviting, and Tony didn’t have an issue with eating just cake, especially since he didn’t want Mrs Rogers spending money on him. “Cake’s good.”

They watched the movie and ate cake; Tony quickly decided that it was his favourite cake, but he wasn’t sure how much of that was due to the coffee or if it was more because of Steve. The blond didn’t insist on candles or singing him happy birthday, something that Tony was grateful of; it wasn’t one of those birthdays, all over the top and loud, it was just him and Steve lying side by side eating cake and watching a movie they both knew off by heart, inside a blanket fort that they’d constructed in Steve’s lounge room. It wasn’t a party. There wasn’t any alcohol, or presents, or rich and famous guests. But, Tony thought, it was probably the best birthday he’d had so far.

Three quarters the way through the movie, Tony rolled onto his side so he could look at Steve. The younger boy lay on his stomach, elbows against the pillow, chin propped up on his hands. The colours from the TV screen played across his face. The genius was pretty sure he started crushing on him just a little bit more.

“Why are we friends?”

Steve glanced over at him, amused curiosity printed plainly on his face. “Why wouldn’t we be friends? You’re a great guy.”

Tony frowned; it wasn’t really the answer he was after. “No, I mean, how did we even become friends, we don’t share anything in common.”

Steve turned to face him properly, head propped up on one hand. “Well, it probably had something do to with me hauling you into this house and cleaning you up after you threw up on mum’s flowers, and then making you bacon and eggs the next morning instead of kicking you out when you got all handsy that night.”

Something about Steve using the word ‘handsy’ while keeping his expression dead serious didn’t sit quite right with Tony. But he knew the smaller boy was good at keeping that deadpan look even when he was joking. He guessed that it was meant to be a joke, so he reached over, prodding a bony shoulder.

“You probably enjoyed it.” He laughed, trying to ignore the hammering of his heart against his chest.

Tony didn’t miss the way Steve blushed and rolled back onto his stomach, eyes suddenly glued on the screen. Maybe it was the wrong thing to say. He wanted to apologise, but he wasn’t sure what to say; it wasn’t often that Tony Stark was at a loss for words, but for once he chose not to say anything, rather than saying the wrong thing.

They both focussed back on the movie, but Tony was overly conscious of how close they were inside the blanket fort. If he focussed really hard, he could hear Steve breathing next to him, despite how much noise was coming from the TV.

He couldn’t remember the night that Steve mentioned; he remembered the morning after, waking up in a strange place, in an empty room that he’d never seen before. Steve had been out in the kitchen, and despite the delightful shade of pink he went when he first saw Tony, he’d been every bit the perfect host, even walked Tony back to the subway station so he could go home.

It hadn’t bothered him, up until then, that he couldn’t remember that night, but part of him was too scared to ask. He was pretty sure that Steve wouldn’t have wanted to be his friend if he’d done anything too untoward. He’d seemed happy enough when Tony asked to swap numbers, and had replied to every message he’d sent that night.

It was as the credits were rolling that Tony noticed the smaller boy had fallen asleep. Steve shifted in his sleep, letting out a soft snore, moving enough that his shirt hiked up exposing the lower part of his back. Tony couldn’t pull his gaze away from the skin, so pale it looked almost translucent; he could see the ridge of Steve’s spine, bones pushing against the skin as though they wanted to escape.

By the dim glow from the TV, he reached out, letting first his fingertips, then his whole hand, rest against warm skin. Tony almost pulled back when the smaller boy shifted, worried that he’d woken Steve up. However, the blond’s eyes remained closed as he moved closer, rolling onto his side and burying his face against Tony’s chest, one hand reaching up to loosely grip the fabric of the older boy’s shirt.

His heart thumped against his ribs, but Tony wasn’t about to move away, instead he reached for the remote and turned off the TV. In the new darkness of the lounge room, tucked safely away inside their blanket fort, Tony slung one arm around Steve’s waist, pressing his nose into blond hair.

He could tell by his breathing that Steve wasn’t really asleep, but he wasn’t about to call him out on that. It’d be something to talk about another time, for the moment, Tony was just going to enjoy what was left of his birthday.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Of Ice Cream Cake and a Swimming Pool](https://archiveofourown.org/works/906451) by [quandong_crumble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quandong_crumble/pseuds/quandong_crumble)




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